Manual on cd?? Any good??

[amitysanimal]

Anyone have any ideas as to if this is worth it or not?

eBay Motors: Kubota B5100 B6100 B7100 Repair Manual B 5100 6100 (item 270329904354 end time Feb-12-09 08:32:24 PST)

Thanks,
Cleve

 

[amitysanimal]

C'mon guys, any thoughts?????????

 

[Soundguy]

I personally like bound manuals... I like to have the book laying ont he bench so i can leaf al the way thru it. I don't like having a computer in the shop.. I know some people like manuals on CD. Technically you can print out the pages you need and use them... but not as good as having the entire manual to leaf thru.. unless you print the entire thing.

Guess you could go to the expense of printing it, then putting it into sheet protectors.. then a 3-ring binder...

soundguy

 

[Jimbrown]

I am not familiar with that particular one. But I have one for mY BX and for my Mule that I got off of another site for about the same price. Both appear to e copies of the factory manual. Legal or not I don't know. I like them because you can print off the pages you need and then don't care if they get greasy or wot not becasue you can always print more.

 

[bruceatlam]

I don't know about tractor manuals on CD, but based upon my experiences with vehicle maunuals on CD, I would be very leery of any repair manual on CD. I've found them virtually worthless. At best they contain "spec information" that is readily available for free on the internet. At worst, they are copies of copies and won't even boot up on my PC. So, I would pass at any price --- you get what you pay for --------

 

[woodlandfarms]

In the classic car world most people don't like the manuals on DVD's. Problem is that you it is not done by the factory so the quality can be off, and that what makes a computer great (searchability primarily) does not exist or exists poorly. Finally, you then have to print things up, or worse, get your computer greasy.

 

[Wombat125]

For my part, I am a big fan of the service manuals on CD. The bound manual for my 5303 was about $250 whereas the CD manual was $135. They have the exact same content; about 1300 pages.

I find that no matter how careful I am in the shop, my bound manuals invariably get goobered up with grease and dirty fingerprints. With the CD manual, I just print out the few relevant pages I need and don't worry about it.

One fella here on the site took his CD to Kinkos or something and had it printed and bound. He had both versions for what I'm guessing was still less money than the bound version alone.

I got my CD directly from the dealer. I might be a little leary of the eBay thing. Good luck!!

 

[Wombat125]

...that what makes a computer great (searchability primarily) does not exist or exists poorly. Finally, you then have to print things up, or worse, get your computer greasy.

I don't mean to sound like I'm evangelizing the CD, but my 5303 manual was just a PDF file. The text searching works very well.

 

[Baranx4]

I think it comes down to personal preference. With the cd you can always print off the entire manual but if you don't do you want to be having your lap top in the garage with you as your working on it for more complex issues.

 

[slaveToHorses]

I have a huge number of equipment manuals in both bound and digital formats. Both have their advantage. It is nice to scan the bound manual in the morning, on the throne, before tackling the days maintenance project. That's a bit awkward with a computer

Occasionally I have gotten poor quality pdfs but if you do a little research you can find good quality ones with bookmarks and hyperlinks. Plus you can always do text searches.

I really like being able to search.

I also really like being able to print out the relevant pages and mark em, grease em, tape em to the machine or whatever. I like being able to reorganize them, because sometimes the material is spread out through the manual.

When you have hundreds of manuals, having them on the computer is a very nice feature!